Children and Art
Art and Adventure – Art Education
Much can be replaced by AI; human creativity cannot.
Since 2024, the Karl Max Kessler Archive’s primary-school project has taken place each year with the fourth-grade class of the Riezlern primary school. For it, we invite an international artist to the Kleinwalsertal who gives the children insights into contemporary artistic work and develops an artwork together with them.
The week-long workshop is prepared by an introduction to art and creative thinking led by Mathias Kessler, and is accompanied across subjects in the classroom. At a time when new technologies and artificial intelligence are changing our everyday lives, creativity, critical thinking and problem-solving take on particular importance.
Through artistic work, playful exploration and the discovery of nature and materials, the children acquire craft skills and social competencies and experience the joy of creating. In addition, the Karl Max Kessler Archive offers day workshops to strengthen the creativity of the next generation in a lasting way.
Contents:
Mathias Kessler (2025) – Nature, Art, Adventure · Hubert Dobler (2025) – The Spaceship Has Landed · Mathias Kessler (2024) – Topsy-Turvy Worlds
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“Nature, Art, Adventure” – children’s workshop at the Freiraum Riezlern (July 2025)
The Freiraum in Riezlern is an after-school and holiday care centre in the Kleinwalsertal.
As part of the holiday programme, Mathias Kessler hosted an art and adventure day in Riezlern together with the Freiraum team.
The aim was to open up new perspectives on nature, the environment and working together — playfully and creatively. The central material was plastic waste: artistic approaches made environmental questions tangible and prompted the children to reflect. Mathias Kessler drew on experience from international projects — such as Imagine Climate Dignity, knotting carpets from plastic with children, and with students in Istanbul. The archive will continue to report on the results of the workshop.
Images:
Hubert Dobler – The Spaceship Has Landed (March and July 2025)
With his artistic focus on movement, mechanics and physical force, he offers an inspiring basis for combining art with playful learning.
A “spaceship” was built in Mathias Kessler’s studio in bitter cold, but with equally great enthusiasm from the children.
Production: The Spaceship Has Landed, 2025
The children designed the invitation cards themselves, gave readings, staged a performance and sang to celebrate the spaceship’s landing together with the village community.
Hubert Dobler – artistic work
Dobler likes to wander up and down the aisles of the hardware store, looking there for his inspiration.
The key term is kinetic art: machines and devices move, or are stacked so that they can no longer fulfil their original function.
Motorcycles drive in circles or are strangled. As a person, Dobler is not averse to this motorised glory of freedom, but as an artist he takes a critical look at the climate-destroying side of fossil fuels.
Künstlerhaus Palais Thurn und Taxis, Bregenz 2023: the rubber abraded by spinning motorcycle tyres on hardboard creates a 176 m² floor drawing.
Exhibition at Galerie c.art, Prantl Boch 2021: these two concrete mixers welded together are rendered useless for taking part in the soil sealing that destroys the natural quality of the ground forever.
In 2011 he organised a soapbox race in Brooklyn / New York. The soapbox carts were built preferably from found objects in a workshop. They were judged on speed, design and originality.
In 2025, the Projekt in Feldkirch was carried out again with children and young people.
In his projects and in his teaching practice, he continually explores the connection between physical dynamics and artistic expression.
Hubert Dobler – biography
Hubert Dobler (b. 1966), born in Vorarlberg, lives and works in New York and Vorarlberg.
After graduating from the HTL technical college in Rankweil, he worked as a structural engineer before studying architecture at the Vienna University of Technology in 1989–91. From 1992 to 1995 he studied at the Academy of Fine Arts Vienna.
Thanks to:
Bernadette and Herbert Fritz (https://www.fewo-fritz.com/)
Double Check Agency – network for culture and education in Vorarlberg
Gemeinde Mittelberg
Raiffeisen Holding
Parents’ association of the primary school and kindergarten in Riezlern
In-kind donations from Holzbau Dominik Jaritz GmbH, Florian Wirth (Huus und Hof) and Markus Schätzer (Walserdruck)
Mathias Kessler – Topsy-Turvy Worlds (March and June 2024)
The first art project with the fourth-grade class of the Riezlern primary school was carried out in spring 2024 at the initiative of the then headmistress Sabine Rotter and the Karl Max Kessler Archive.
The art initiative aims to foster artistic creativity and a connection with nature.
An introductory presentation informs teachers and parents about the project’s vision. Mathias Kessler not only delves into general concepts of art projects with children, but also presents notable examples such as the famous artist Keith Haring, Erwin Wurm and others.
The creative part of the first project begins with handing out single-use cameras to the pupils. Together they set off on an excursion through the idyllic landscape of the Kleinwalsertal. During this field trip, the children are taught the basics of photography and given room for their own delight in experimenting. The focus is on capturing the world around them from new perspectives and recording their individual point of view.
The next step was developing the films. The charm of single-use cameras often lies in the surprise, as the children see their shots only once the films are developed.
The resulting photographs were digitised in order to create a mural together with other materials. What emerged were collages of photos and newspaper cuttings that interweave reality and fantasy. The children called them “topsy-turvy worlds”.
The artwork was presented on the Karl Max Kessler Archive’s billboard at the Bohrhaldestall (Kanzelwand descent / at the level of the Kessler lift’s top station).
Here is how the pupils saw their work — an excerpt:
“I really enjoy working together with my classmates. Creating a project together is great. Every idea is allowed. I’m proud to make an artwork with the artist Mathias Kessler. It’s so much fun. Taking photos with a real camera was brilliant — I learned a lot doing it. I photographed what makes me happy. I’m proud of my artwork.”
This participatory art project is intended as art education for the youngest residents, as well as an opportunity for all residents and visitors to come together through the official presentation of the result in the village.
Thanks to:
Mathias Kessler – artistic work
Mathias Kessler – biography
Mathias Kessler (*1968, Austria) lives and works in the Kleinwalsertal, Vorarlberg, and in New York. In his artistic practice he questions the concept of nature and its cultural construction. Drawing on art history, philosophy and ecological discourse, he combines painting, installation, land art and digital processes. Kessler stages natural processes as fragile, often contradictory images in which aesthetics, ideology and experience overlap. His works move between critical reflection, visual power and subtle irony.
